Nhuala Baenhoof
All art on this page is drawn by Baenhoof, and is not to be used elsewhere. Additionally, much of the tauren-centric info on this page is fanon, mostly of my own creation, though I will not deny heavy inspiration taken from elsewhere. I claim ownership over nothing in the fanon except for the Thunderhide Tribe. This shit is so incredibly WIP you have no idea, bro. =Personality= Among tauren, Baenhoof is hotheaded, sometimes even reckless, ruthless, brash, and unforgiving. Fortunately, among the rest of the Horde and especially the orcs, she can seem almost patient by comparison. Baenhoof seems to try her best to appear intimidating, standoffish and stern to just about everyone she meets, but any length of time spent in her company will almost certainly prove that gruff exterior to be a mask. Against her best efforts, Baenhoof often cares quite a bit more than she lets on and is quicker to trust than is usually wise. Nhuala is incredibly dutiful and loyal to her championed cause, preferring to take a 'by the book' approach to her work. Even in her personal life, she is hard-pressed to break from routine and personal tradition, even though who she is tends to fly in the face of the stereotypical tauren personae. That she is not the usual for tauren- passive, meditative, gentle, is a result of her past and her upbringing. She sees the value in adapting to survive and knows that certain attitudes the tauren possess about things is likely to get her people hurt or killed off. so she struggles between the ideals she was raised with and the reality she has personally witnessed. Baen has quite a lot of respect and reverence for tauren ideals, culture, and beliefs, but feels she has been tainted too heavily by war and hardship and never quite feels at home in Thunder Bluff or Mulgore, which she views as the promised land- a bastion for her people, untouched by the troubles of the world, and so feels she does not belong there and has nothing in common with the shu'halo that choose to live there. She feels a responsibility to protect those innocents and continue letting them have somewhere peaceful and beautiful to raise their children. =Backstory= Childhood Nhuala was born many years ago in springtime Southern Barrens, into the small, close-knit Thunderhide Tribe, close to where modern Taurajo was. She was born slightly too early and was a very small calf. Many of the tribe's shaman predicted she would not survive long- the Barrens, with the centaur and quillboar attacks, were not a forgiving place. But survive she did. Some say it was through sheer luck the tiny calf made it through the following winter. Small and with no strength to speak of, her only redeeming factor, it seemed, was her fiery will and a passion for the hunt, driven and determined to not only keep up with her brothers and sisters, but to outstrip them. The Rites Upon coming of age, the crone shaman, her own mother, told her what her trial would be. Mother and daughter fasted for many days, and on the final day they built a fire inside the crone's tent. Rare herbs were thrown onto the fire, and the ancestors approached from within the flames. They told her she was to hunt the rarest of thunder lizards, her tribe's namesake and spirit animal- an ancient beast named Drum'kani, and ask for his blessing. Whether she lived or died, she would be an official, adult member of her tribe, and honoured as such. She left Thunderhide mesa on a warm summer night, armed with only an axe and a waterskin. The young Nhuala wandered for three days and nights before she came upon the ancient and massive Drum'kani, wounded by a vicious pack of raptors. Although the venerable thunder lizard had managed to defeat the raptors, all of which lay dead and charred around him, his wounds were mortal and the great beast was at death's door. Stricken, Nhuala tried to ask for his blessing, but Drum'kani could do nothing in his pain and anguish. Not knowing what else to do, Nhuala apologized and said a prayer for the beast, then delivered a killing blow to put him out of his misery. She cried for hours, only leaving when the lions showed up to return the beast to the earth. Upon her return home, young Nhuala was confronted by the crone shaman, her mother. Ashamed of her actions, she lied and told them she had been successful in getting Drum'kani's blessing. She was granted a new name by the crone, and was, from that day forward, a woman. She hunted with the tribe, she fought with the tribe. She would be Thunderdrum. Because she lied and because of what she had done, Thunderdrum knew she was unworthy of the name given her and so came up with a name of her own, one she did not use openly until years later. Tribe Life The Thunderhide Tribe was perhaps one of the more warlike tribes, and as such often found themselves between the largest of the tribes, the Bloodhoof, and the Grimtotem, which were often opposed. The Grimtotem often aided the Thunderhide in times of need, and with the increasing amount of brutal centaur attacks, those times came more and more frequently. Khudan Dawnhowl, Khintalo's eldest son, met with a group of refugees, fleeing from the Eastern Kingdoms. The young bull left the tribe, going to help the Argent Dawn fight against the scourge. The tauren may survive, but a legion of risen undead, he felt, was more important. Thunderdrum, who had looked up to her older brother all her life, felt abandoned and betrayed. Her mother became very ill, and it was though the tribe fell out of favour with the spirits. The centaur, preferring guerilla strikes through traps and ambushes, began to drive game from the hunters, and what game was caught was too small to be of much use. The tribe's numbers dwindled. One after the other, either in battle or from the wounds they sustained. They began to starve, and as the oases became fierce battlegrounds between tauren and centaur, water became a precious commodity. Muata Flamewalker died one night at the height of a fever, and her mate, the chieftain, became despondent. His tribe was dying all around him and there was nothing he could do. The Thunderhide struggled without a leader, directionless and hopeless. It fell to the second daughter, Thunderdrum, to lead the tribe, and she struggled under the massive weight of responsibility. The odds of survival looked grim. Because she had killed the tribe's patron spirit, Drum'kani, as a child, she felt it was her fault that her tribe and her people were cursed with war and famine. Thunderdrum could not have hoped to lead when she herself was too wracked with guilt to act. Shamed and dishonoured, she took up a moniker of her own making, one she felt better fit the life she had created. Thunderdrum became Baenhoof, and would not answer to her old name. She knew she was unworthy of it. Joining the Horde The centaur attacks grew more frequent, more violent. The unexpected arrival of Thrall was a blessing, and Cairne Bloodhoof saw an opportunity for his people to be saved. But the Grimtotem, the Thunderhide's long-standing allies, did not agree, and the Thunderhide Chieftain found himself caught between the Grimtotem, who had seceded from the great tribe family, and the Bloodhoof, who had allied with the Horde. Chieftain Khintalo knew that if he allowed his tribe to join the Grimtotem it would mean more death for his loved ones. But the Horde, he knew, gave his family a fighting chance. Khintalo made a judgement call. The tribes rallied together to join the Horde, and Baen found her eyes on a young bull named Rodakar during a celebratory feast. He was big, strong, with a head almost as hot as hers was. They became almost inseparable over the course of the Horde's trek through Kalimdor. The pair soon, however, found themselves in over their heads. The life of a soldier was different from that of a brave. Young Baenhoof bent herself to the task, rising to the challenge. Never quite on par with orcish berserkers or the vicious trolls, Baen nevertheless became adept with the axe, mace and sword. She shed familiar hide armour for the odd metal armour of the orcs. She was determined to learn and make a place for herself in the Horde, to redeem herself for past transgressions and her failure as not only a leader, but as a daughter. Archimonde Rises One particularily nasty skirmish against a band of warring kaldorei saw the entire chain of command above the tauren woman killed off, one by one, until commanding rank fell upon her plated shoulders. Once again, Baenhoof surprisingly rose to the challenge, and although the mission objective was not completed, Baenhoof saw the night elf war party crippled, and was able to get the rest of the surviving Horde to safety. This was a different kind of warfare than the tauren were used to. Prolonged tactics came into play, strategic troop movements and squad makeup were new terms the tauren had not even considered before. Pitted against foes more vicious and deadly than the centaur had ever threatened to be, Baenhoof saw the horrific aspects of war that would change her at her core forever. During the Kalimdor campaign, Khintalo was killed in an ambush. The Thunderhide were now only three: Baenhoof, her younger sister Khima, who served as a scout, and Khudan...wherever he was. All the tribes had lost sons and daughters to the Legion at the end of the third war, and some found comfort amongst other tauren who had experienced loss, but Baenhoof still felt unworthy of their company after her actions with Drum'kani, and distanced herself from her people. All the same, she felt she had nobody in the world besides Khima and Rodakar, and promised herself she would protect them both no matter the cost. A Brave Becomes a Grunt She was trained hard by her sergeant, a gruff and bitter orc, who's bark was more lenient than his bite. Brutally and quickly, she found that the old ways, her people's ways, could not stand up to the kind of war the rest of the Horde could make. Survival had always been the name of the game, and now, with most of her tribe dead and gone, Baenhoof knew she had to adapt or die. Over the years, Baen became a bonafide warrior, hardened and an efficient. A well-oiled gear of the Horde's warmachine. She attributes much of her militaristic attitude to her training in the bloody sands of Durotar. Khima found her talents were well-suited to scouting the forests of Ashenvale, and stayed with the Warsong to secure resources for the Horde. She disappeared for months at a time without contacting Baenhoof, and the elder of the two found she had to content herself with the hope that her 'baby sister' was still alive and well. The majority of the tauren left Orgrimmar, moving with a detachment of the Horde that would eventually help them cull the centaur and quillboar and secure Mulgore, where the shaman set to work raising a mighty bluff to build a city atop. It would come to be called Thunder Bluff, in time. Baenhoof did not go with them. Finding no more challenge within the endless guard-work and the lull after the tent-city of Orgrimmar was secured in Durotar, Baenhoof was granted a discharge from the military and sent on her way with Rodakar. The bull, it seemed, was something of a prodigy among the shaman of the Horde. He had been born gifted with a knack for the spiritual, and the elemental pacts came easily to him--easiest of all, fire. The pair sought out adventure and coin as mercenaries. Mercenary Work Work was somewhat scarce in Orgrimmar for mercenary types- the Horde warmachine was at work building their stronghold and defending the surrounding lands. Baenhoof wasted time in bars, squirreling what little pay she had kept from the Kor'kron away on drink and gambling; she was susceptible to vice, as so many young warriors are. The two, finding no work in Orgrimmar, decided to spend the last of their coin to secure passage on a zeppelin bound for the Eastern Kingdoms. Hopefully their luck would take a turn for the better there. After a few days, they had found work as mercenaries in exploratory expedition to what was whispered in legend as the Blackrock Mountain. There was said to be treasure within the fiery caverns below. The expedition head called it the Molten Core. It was a long, long trip- their kodos were repurposed from beasts of war to pack animals, and the hearty tauren walked the majority of the trip. The Horde military had seperated Baenhoof from Rodakar, and they had hardly seen each other during. The journey to the middle of the Eastern Kingdoms, however, forced the two tauren closer and closer together. What had been friendly smiles years earlier now turned to appraising looks, playful grins. They spent passionate night after night under the starry skies and pine forests, and what had once been close childhood friendship now turned to love. The two wove a small braid into the other's mane- a promise they would be lifebound in the ancestral grasslands of the Barrens when they returned from the job. Weeks later, they arrived at Blackrock Mountain, it's charred spires reaching into the smokey red sky above. It was a sky Baenhoof and Rodakar would come to miss. The caverns, the party soon discovered, were indeed filled with treasure, but also the worrisome stirrings of something far older. They became lost within the sweltering hot, twisting labyrinthe that was the Core, beset on all edges by powerful and ancient horrors. The name Ragnaros was whispered on the heated air, and Rodakar found himself in the throes of nightmares when he did manage to sleep. Something called to him in that dark, fiery place under the mountain. The whispers turned to shouted warnings from beasts that had never seen daylight, and the legend of the Firelord became real in one horrific instant. The rock-encrusted lava below exploded as a being of monolithic size and power burst up from the ground, roaring his fury, stalactites shuddering from the impossibly high cavern ceiling and crashing into the molten rock pools below. The expedition scattered. No treasure was worth this. Baenhoof ran for cover, panicked and afraid and bellowing for her mate to follow her. Diving behind a rocky outcropping, she panted, attempting to still her wildly beating heart, and looked startled when she discovered Rodakar was not by her side. The bull was frozen, his eyes locked on the fiery behemoth before them, it's hammer whirling in the air before slamming with impossible force to the fragmented ground, crushing some poor soul underneath. Baen picked up her axe again, frenzied determination fueling an otherwise fear-petrified body, and sprinted back toward her mate. Too late, she saw Ragnaros turn as Rodakar's thick fingers wove an archaic patterns. Too late the bull realized, and turned to run. Baen's world slowed to a jarring halt as Ragnaros' massive fist raised above his head and sped down toward the male tauren. Her limbs were lead, refusing to move fast enough. The oppressive heat in the air choked her lungs. A smile shared in the Barrens, a kiss under a foreign night sky. Baen let a roar of grief and rage free from her chest, stricken with pain. Roda's eyes met hers a split second before he was incinerated into nothing under the elemental general's colossal fist. Something broke in her. She let white hot fury take over. Red seeped into her vision, heart pumping like thunder with adrenaline. Revenge stabbed at her heart, and she let it consume her. The tauren charged at the whirling inferno at Ragnaros' base, mane whipping wildly in the spark and smoke-ridden wind, disappearing within it. She let it overtake her lungs, stinging at her eyes. She couldn't breathe. Baenhoof felt death and accepted it, but begged for an instant longer to try and take back what the Firelord had stolen from her. The world went black. Booty Bay Pitfighting Somehow, weeks later, Baenhoof found herself wandering the wilds of the Eastern Kingdoms alone. Birds screeched overhead, the jungle closed in all around her. Food was like ash, water was thick and viscous. Sleep held only nightmares. She drifted to Booty Bay, a numb, mindless vessel for the rage that boiled within her, hidden always just under the surface. She slept where she fell in the docks, and paid for food and drink by forcibly taking the coin from whoever was unlucky enough to interrupt her brooding. After a particularily brutal brawl, she was approached by a goblin, propositioned for work as a contender in an underground pitfighting circle. With nothing to lose, she accepted, and began the next day. The fights were bloody, brutal, often fatal. Unarmoured, unarmed, Baenhoof put her superior size and weight to use, quickly becoming renowned as something of a beast. She flew into bloodrages almost nightly, sometimes killing her opponents before she could be pulled off and forcibly calmed. It was here that Baenhoof earned the majority of her scars and the entirety of her tenacity, her unwillingness to fall. She could take a hit and keep taking them, outlasting her enemies for as long as it took to beat them down. From Fire Reborn She forgot the valour and honour of the Horde, the red and black banners becoming nothing more than meaningless flags and the sails on ships that came and went from the port city. Her nightmares were still haunted by the screams and yells of her mate in his death throes, she still saw the flames when she drifted off to sleep. The nightmares came infrequently, sometimes only briefly...but still they came. Years passed, and she left the fighting ring to find meagre work as a bodyguard for the Steamwheedle Cartel, escorting shipments from Ratchet and Tanaris. Four years had passed since Rodakar's death. And one night, instead of fire and death, Baenhoof dreamed of life. The dream came every night for months, until a location appeared in the dream. The Blackrock Mountain. Tauren do not dream and think nothing of it as humans do. Dreams are gifts, meant to guide and inspire. They are given by the Ancestors, and no dream is ever to be taken lightly. For whatever reason, Baenhoof knew she must return to the mountain. And so it was for that reason that the black-furred tauren found herself, weeks later, standing over the fiery chasm that was the center of the mountain. A passage lead around the inside, paved and cobbled by the dwarves centuries before. Her eyes were hard, distrustful as she peered down into the lava below. Cinder-laden air whipped her mane about and threatened to bully her solid form off the edge. Waiting for something--anything--to happen, Baenhoof waited for hours, daring to hope. She had almost resigned herself to hopelessness, once more, when she heard a familiar voice. "Nhuala?" She turned, only to find herself face to face with a face that haunted her nights. His fur was no longer black like hers, but greyish, as if coated with ash. Ice-blue eyes locked onto hers, fear and joy swirling within them. "I'm sorry. I did all I could." His voice was deep, sweet. Gentle. Rodakar stood before her, his armour almost like the molten rock itself, His chest bare, except a large runic mark over his heart. It was like fire itself, though slowly fading to simple yet horrific, twisted scar tissue. The bull had been changed. The leather thong around his neck, always having borne a sacred shamanistic symbol known as the ankh was now bare. It held nothing. Baen simply wept and went to him, unsure if it was reality or if she was hallucinating. Had she finally lost her mind? It was many hours before they seperated again, and Rodakar explained everything. He had indeed been killed. Shaman, he had said, return to the ancestors when they die, just as all tauren do. It seemed, however, that the Firelord had other plans for his spirit. He was transported to the elemental plane of fire, and held captive there. He had made a bargain, he said. Always finding the element of fire came naturally to him, he was to return to Azeroth as a scion of fire. Why he was not simply turned into an elemental, the tauren said, he wasn't sure. Rodakar suspected there were other powers at play. Why he had been chosen, why he had not simply died as all others had, he did not know. Baen decided not to question it. She didn't have the heart to question it. It was miraculous, but Rodakar had returned to her from the dead, braving fire and darkness to do it. ''((An OOC note here: Yes, I am aware that resurrection of a character is an incredibly cliched, campy thing to do. However, if a resurrection was to take place, I feel this would be the best way to do it. It is possible for skilled shaman who have created a personal ankh through ceremony and lifelong dedication to, under extreme circumstances, possibly be taken to an elemental plane instead of the spirit world upon death. In extremely rare cases, it might be possible for the shaman to escape from that plane. '' A powerful shaman with an ankh might have to wait years to return, and then they might not have a body to do so. So what to do about a body? Some preliminary knowledge- all shaman know of and revere the four elements of earth, fire, water and air. In WoW lore, there is proof of a fifth element, though most shaman either do not know about this element or dismiss it as myth. This fifth element is the element of life. Rodakar, at his time of death, was an enhancement shaman with an affinity for fire. Ragnaros saw this and instead of outright killing the bull, took him for his own to turn him into a scion like we saw in the Firelands raid. The brand on his chest is a mark of ownership to Ragnaros. Stupid? Maybe, but again, if a character rez was going to happen, thats the best way I feel it could have happened.)) Chill of the Throne and the Stormrock Baenhoof and Rodakar, knowing that Azeroth as a whole was threatened, traveled to Northrend and signed on with the Argent Crusade to fight back the Scourge. They never imagined the horrors they would come face to face with- monsters that had been stitched together, ghouls, twitching wrecks called geists with clawed needle-like fingers that could rip through armour like butter. Gargoyles that would swoop down into trenches and fly off with unlucky warriors only to drop them to their deaths. Val'kyr that would turn fallen friends against their former allies, shambling vry'kul and waves upon waves upon waves of half-rotted skeletons, including nameless horrors Baenhoof had only heard stories about. Faceless wretches and spider-like monstrosities. Baenhoof saw friends and allies literally torn apart. She had forgotten how gruesome war could be, but a war on the unliving was gruesome beyond anything she'd ever seen. Some went mad, some lost all hope. Some, like herself, pushed on to the icy citadel, and breached the doors. Baenhoof and Rodakar helped to hold off the legion of undead that swarmed toward them on all sides while Tirion and a small group of warriors made for the upper reaches of the citadel, fighting for their lives. When the Lich King fell, the furor of the unliving wavered. They simply stood there, unaware of their surroundings. The day had been won. With a renewed passion for life, Baenhoof sought out something she had not felt in many years- the warmth of a family. Thinking a clan of shaman might help to calm a heart full of bloodlust and rage, she spoke with an orc woman named Erier. Weeks later, she bore a tabard bearing twin lightning strikes, and a totem pendant around her neck. She was a Stormrock. Baenhoof quickly rose in the ranks of the Stormrock. Her militaristic training and lawful attitude and the opening in the ranks for a warlord and enforcer saw the tauren into those positions. Erier left to join the Earthen Ring for a time, and an upheaval in the clan saw her mate, Rodakar, as the new Chieftain. The formation of COBRA happened shortly after, and Baenhoof saw an opportunity to redeem herself in offering the Stormrock to the coalition's fighting forces. The result was an unintentional departure from the core of the Stormrock's ideals and Baenhoof's initial purpose for joining the Clan--to calm her heart and teach her temperance. Instead, their constant warring displeased the spirits, and, Baenhoof felt, eventually lead to the collapse of the Clan. The Cataclysm Distrust spread in the clan- Garrosh's murder of Cairne meant a seed was planted between the orcs and tauren, and Vol'jin's attitude toward the young Warchief meant the same between the orcs and trolls. Kalimdor was beset on all sides by the Alliance, and the tauren's ancestral home was threatened. The elements were angry and uneasy, and the boundaries between Azeroth and the elemental prisons were fading. The Stormrocks fought not only for their way of life, but also for peace and for Azeroth as a whole. There was so much to be lost. Baenhoof was among the first to witness the horror and destruction of Camp Taurajo in the Southern Barrens. She saw, firsthand, the burned husks of former friends and allies. She saw the charred remains of her own baby sister, Khima, who she had grown up protecting and taking care of. Where all of her efforts since her childhood were undertaken with the safety and wellbeing of her loved ones in mind, Baenhoof was now too late to save the one place on Azeroth she held most dear. Too late to save her one remaining blood relative. The tauren had spent her entire life attempting to calm her temper and keep an even head, but the destruction of Taurajo threatened to undo all of it. Baen, in that instant, renounced all neutrality she had worked for and sought bloody revenge on those who had torn the last remaining shred of her tribe from her, those who would destroy her ancestral home. She sailed out to Tol'Barad and was stationed there for some time, fighting the Alliance and the ghostly inhabitants for control over the island. But fate had something different in mind, it seemed. Ragnaros rose once again from the Firelands, and she and Rodakar knew that retribution against the Alliance would have to wait. A different kind of retribution must come first. The Firelands Rodakar had spent what was, to him, a thousand years in the elemental plane of fire when he died. The shaman remembered it well, but upon entering, it became all too clear that this was not the Firelands he was accustomed to. Ragnaros had marshalled an army, and even as they slipped through, his legions were pouring out into Hyjal to take Azeroth. They sought the druids, the Avengers of Hyjal, and devoted themselves to aiding them. Ragnaros' forces had struck first, and were more prepared. But as days went by, the druids gained the upper hand, and a foray into the Firelands was finally possible. The trek there was long, arduous, and Baenhoof's demeanour throughout could only be described as irascible. Like nowhere else before, she champed at the bit, of unshakably singular mind and purpose, yearning to have her revenge on the Firelord for daring to take what was so precious to her. With the Firelord dead before them, Baenhoof's anger fell away from her like a heavy weight had been dropped from her shoulders. She was empty, spent, and could do nothing but thank the spirits her Rodakar had been given back to her. Ragnaros was dead, and she felt she could finally begin to heal. Ragnaros' mark on Rodakar, the massive scar on his chest in the shape of his emblem, faded, and with it, Rodakar's connection to fire. It diminished to almost nothing, and the bull knew he would have to work to be able to once again, call the element to his aid. Strengthened, however, was his connection to water, although his own personal healing capabilities were diminished. Rodakar could heal others almost effortlessly, but healing himself even a little was a strain, and other forms of magical healing had little effect as well. His natural regeneration was diminished as well. The gift of renewed life did not come without a price, it seemed. Retirement With the Destroyer dead and the elements returning, once again, to balance, Baenhoof and Rodakar, world-weary and tired from what seemed like an eon of war, decided they had paid their dues to Azeroth and spent more than a few lifetimes fighting for it. They had earned their rest. The couple retreated to the Barrens, back to savannah and blue skies as far as they eye could see. With a lake nearby and room enough for their war kodos to roam, Baenhoof and Rodakar set up a tent on a mesa and put away their armour and their trophies, returning to a simple life of hunting and gathering and quiet nights spent under starry skies. They had planned, when very young, to have a calf when the world was safe enough to bring one into it. Baenhoof, a woman who never thought twice about bullrushing her way into a line of enemy soldiers or who had roared blood and thunder at the most fearsome of opponents now found herself anxious at the thought of being a mother. Who could think to take on so much responsibility as to care so deeply and so entirely for another life? What if she was a bad parent? But still, they tried for a calf. And tried, and tried. The couple became desperate, and traveled to Thunder Bluff to seek the help of a healer. Baenhoof was bathed in the glacial springs of Winterspring. She was blessed by the crones, painted in ochre and white to seek the Earthmother's favour. Herbs were burned, and she breathed the smoke deep. Rodakar crushed kodo horns into his food, ate the heart of a lion. None of it helped. They traveled to Orgrimmar, to visit the Orphanage. Still anxious about being a mother, Baenhoof and Rodakar took their time and chose to work with Matron Battlewail to get to know the children before choosing one to raise. Baenhoof took to spending all her time at the orphanage, and delighted in playing with the children, telling them stories. She rocked the young ones to sleep, pried the older ones apart when they fought, and even volunteered to teach the eldest to spar with wooden swords. Parting the Mists Word reached the pair that a new continent had been discovered quite by accident, and that the truce with the Alliance had been broken at sea. They dithered at first, but when the call to war was sounded in earnest, Baenhoof and Rodakar left Orgrimmar to sail with the Horde to Domination Point, and continued the fight there. Finding Hellscream's methods abrasive and foolish at best and downright deplorable at worst, Baenhoof heard rumours of unsatisfactory things happening within the Horde. The Horde made it's way to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, and Rodakar sequestered himself away in the Lorekeeper's libraries at the Seat of Knowledge. The two were pleased to find that the strange race of bear people, pandaren, that inhabited Pandaria shared similar ideals to that of the tauren, though Baenhoof found them to be a little too preachy when one let them talk too long. Still, she enjoyed their stories, their food, and their company, and when the Horde moved north into Kun'Lai to meet the Alliance head-on, she found her taste for battle was stale. Sha dominated anyone that let their emotions run unchecked, and she knew it would be more crucial than ever to keep her rage under control. News of the Divine Bell reached her, and Baenhoof knew in her heart this was not the Horde she had come to know and love. With the conquest of Kun'Lai at it's end, she abandoned Horde forces and stole away in the night, headed back to the Vale, and for safety. She joined back up with the same mercenary crew that had seen she and Rodakar into the Firelands, and they made for the Isle of Thunder, intent on procuring relics of value to sell back to the Horde war machine. Somewhere along the way, she met up with a sin'dorei warlock who hired her on to be a part-time bodyguard and enforcer. With the coin earned from both ventures, she was able to buy passage for herself and Rodakar back to Kalimdor, where they retreated to their old tent to retire for good, officially out of the Horde and neutral at last. These Guys Cannot Fucking Catch a Break, Can They? One night, however, Rodakar awoke to a nightmare in which he and his mate were ripped to shreds by black worgs, and like so many shaman before him, knew that something was amiss. In the morning, the pair were awoken by the sight of Horde wagons and goblin shredders atop the same mesa they inhabited, though far in the distance, closer to Stonetalon's mountains. The Horde war machine had found them, it seemed. Rodakar spied a pair of orcs on worgs approach, and on a hunch, told Baenhoof to gear up, as he did the same. Their tent was on the edge of the treeline, they were approached by a pair of orcs who told them they must vacate the mesa immediately. Baenhoof let her temper get the best of her. This was her home, and they had fought for it and defended it for years now. Rodakar placated her, fearing for their safety and the safety of the tauren still in Orgrimmar, and his dream lingering fresh in his mind. But it was too late. The orcs took offense, and took it upon themselves to teach the tauren a lesson in deference. The blast of molten rock the orc shaman launched at their tent could not be stopped. Their posessions, their trophies, all their keepsakes from their tribes and all the physical memories they had kept over the years, gone in an instant. All they saved was what they had on them. A gunshot sounded just as they leapt onto Baenhoof's protodrake, and it wasn't until they were over the cliffs into Mulgore that Baen realized Rodakar had been shot. They raced to Thunder Bluff, and in the early hours of sunrise, Rodakar was rushed to the Elder's Rise. He had lost too much blood, and Baenhoof stood by and watched, useless, her hands shaking, as the healers tried to breathe life back into her lifemate. Eventually, Rodakar was resuscitated, but only just. His encounter with Ragnaros, the Firelord, and his branding on the bull's chest had diminished his natural healing. Where it may have taken a healthy tauren weeks to recover, with the aid of magical healing, Rodakar took months. The gunshot had grazed a lung, and so he had problems breathing, unable to exert himself for any period of time without being reduced to violent coughing fits. Rebellion While Rodakar healed in Thunder Bluff, Baenhoof had always been uncomfortable in the tauren city, and grew antsy keeping her lifemate company. He contented himself to helping the healers make salves and ointments, putting his intimate knowledge of herbs and their properties to work. In return they were given a tent to sleep in, and meagre belongings in which to start over with. The tauren are nothing if not caring, and so Rodakar never wanted for much, thanks to the kindness of those in the Bluffs. With his blessing and repeated assurance he would be fine on his own, Baenhoof left for Razor Hill, to help the rebellion in earnest. Recognized as a veteran of war, she lead several raiding parties in the Barrens--territory she knew well, even after the destruction of the Cataclysm--and toppled numberous Kor'kron supply wagons. It pained her to come face to face with old allies in battle, but such is the nature of rebellion, and as more news of Hellscream's atrocities came from Pandaria, and from the mouths of the rebels she fought with, Baenhoof knew she was doing what was right. As the rebellion progressed, they pushed into Orgrimmar, making a final stand, and Baenhoof captained a familiar group of rebels--the Outriders--to take back several key locations around the city. A Tyrant Falls Baenhoof is never happy when death is involved. She knows all too well the value of life and the cost of taking one, or many, and so when Garrosh was captured and sent to be tried in Pandaria, she was only pleased the fighting had stopped. Many of the orcs had seen Hellscream's son as a new beginning, and she understood their disappointment. She shared it. Perhaps she had been shamed, in some small way, by her initial defection from the Horde, no matter how 'right' it had seemed or would prove to be. Perhaps it was a desire to absolve herself of that shame, to prove to the New Horde that she was still loyal that saw her rejoin the Kor'kron Legion following Garrosh's downfall. For whatever reason, she serves them now, whatever their role in the new Horde will prove to be. Lok'tar Ogar, Kor'kron! During her time within the Legion's ranks, Baenhoof again demonstrated a sense of duty and leadership, and was promoted to the rank of Captain by High Warlord Gargaron Khral. ---- =Arms & Armour, Combat Info= Baenhoof learned very early on in in the Horde how to wear armour, and prefers to wear a custom-made set of fullplate, originally crafted by one of the best orcish armoursmiths in Orgrimmar. Her current set is made of blackened titansteel, and is the third set of armour she has had made. She's since taken up smithing on her own, if only to properly bang out the dents and repair the armour as needed. Rodakar took up runesmithing as a sort of hobby upon his return to the living, and while far from the best, much of Baen's armour and weaponry has been runed, enchanted, by her lifemate. List of IC Enchantments & Notable Modifications *Elemental Dampening: Wearing a sheet of metal has it's benefits, but the cons quickly begin to outweigh the pros when one's enemies wield fire and lightning. This rune dampens all but the most intense of elements, to prevent Baenhoof's armour from exacerbating electrocution or metallic heat transfer brought on by fire and lava attacks. *Weight Reduction: The plates Baenhoof wears are fairly thick, and as such would be very weighty indeed. One rune reduces the weight by three quarters, allowing her to move faster and even swim fully armoured. *Resist and Reflect: Baenhoof's shield will, on occasion, reflect a minor spell, provided she is able to properly block it. It will fire back at whatever angle the shield was raised at, so is not guaranteed to hit whoever cast it in the first place. The shield will also resist most forms of dragonfire, which would otherwise easily melt most metals. *Weapon Chain: Baenhoof's sword, equipped with a handguard so big she often uses it as a secondary smaller shield, is chained to her gauntlet, meaning she can never be completely disarmed. ((OOC Note: Baenhoof is tough, but she's only tauren. Most of these are intended to explain how the character is able to stand up to the ridiculous beatings she takes without dying, or explain simple game mechanics realistically.)) ---- =OOC Crap= Trivia! *Baenhoof, as a character, began over a decade ago as a male tauren barbarian in a Warcraft-styled D&D campaign. His greatest achievements include having a strength score so ridiculous he was able to pick up a night-elven glaive thrower to use as a weapon against the night elves he had taken it from, and almost literally punching a troll to the moon. *Rodakar's player and I are married IRL. We were married about a year after they were lifebound ingame, and our engagement happened a few months before that. The ingame ceremony was held on a cliff near Taurajo overlooking Mulgore. *Much of Baenhoof's character was inspired from existing characters like Jayne Cobb (Firefly), Xena, Vasquez (Alien), and a slew of other tough action heroes, most of whom are women. *Baen developed PTSD during the Kalimdor campaign, and it has only worsened during her time in the Horde. She has trouble getting to and staying asleep, immense troubles being physically intimate with her mate, and her hands shake from varying degrees almost all the time. When she is worried, antsy or coming down from an adrenaline high, they get so bad she is usually unable to hold anything or do anything with her hands until she calms down. *It's for this reason she started smoking. She smokes tobacco when she can't get anything else as even the simple hand to mouth movement has an effect on calming her, but most of what she smokes is an herbal mix akin to real-world weed. Rodakar, as an herbalist, makes these blends particularily strong to help her go to sleep as well. She has a dependence on the herb to function normally, at this point. She pays extra in Orgrimmar's smoke shop to get her joints rolled for her, as she is no longer capable of doing it herself, and keeps both kinds of cigarettes in a waterproof metallic case. *Her shield has served her for years, and on the inside is scrawled and etched all manner of things. Little reminders from campaigns passed, or markings to inspire her. Some, even, are just little doodle-scratches from when she was bored on guard duty, years ago. Among the markings, however, is an ever-growing count of scratches in the bottom left corner. This is a count of all the people Baenhoof promised to protect over the years that she eventually failed. Friends, family, and battle-brothers who were with her when they died. People she could have done something to save, had she been a second faster, had she known the arrow was coming. Realistically, there's nothing she could have done for the majority of these people, but hopefully I've established by now that Baenhoof is the sort of person to put an unreal amount of blame on herself for a lot of things. Major Retcons *Aged roughly 45 years to middle-age. Better fit for the character archetype. *Rewrote inappropriate elements of backstory. They were a little offensive, as well as not making much sense for the character. *Relationship with Mustadar retconned. Caused OOC problems. *Retconned from 72 to 52 years of age, to fit with the retcon of the RPG material and information tweeted more recently by lore devs. Baenhoof is still middle-aged. *Retconned height from 7'9" tall to 8'9" to fit with tauren height averages tweeted by cdevs. Female tauren average is 9'. *Relationship with Nixalegos Felscythe removed. OOC problems with player. ---- =Gallery= Md18x3.jpg|by Unknown (please PM me!) Baencommission.png|Baenhoof and Rodakar by TheLaughingHound Baen by thelaughinghound.png|by TheLaughingHound baenhoof by nicoletti.png|By TheLaughingHound baenhoof by cowscratch.jpg|By Cowscratch/Cadistra baenhoof by cowscratch bust.jpg|By Cowscratch/Cadistra uyn.png|By Mosstep/Uyn (Picturing her orc!) tumblr_lvrlgoupV11qgh0m5o1_500.png|By Rashkah baenling_f by hornedfreak.jpg|by Hornedfreak Baenhoof by satterly.png|by Satterly Category:Tauren Category:Characters Category:The Kor'kron Legion